


But I Ain't Got Wings

by vorpalblades



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 19:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11065917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vorpalblades/pseuds/vorpalblades
Summary: Castiel only inhabits the vessel according to his need, and the holy tax accountant, a pious man, keeps waking up in compromising and confusing situations. Old AU for season 4.





	But I Ain't Got Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Importing old fic from LJ. Originally written as a gift for spn_J2_xmas 2009. This was written before we learned about Castiel's vessel in detail, and in my original post, I called the main character Brandon. I've changed it to the proper name, but kept everything else as originally published.

When Jimmy Novak was twelve years old, his family went on a service retreat with other people from their church. They stayed a week in Juarez, Mexico, and most of Jimmy’s time was spent playing with the local kids while the adults built houses. He never understood a word the other children said, and most conversations had to go through a translator. But one thing Jimmy noticed was how happy everyone looked -- both his family and the people they came to help.

That’s when Jimmy knew that he wanted to do God’s work when he grew up.

He prayed for it every day.

*****

Twenty years later, when the angel appears to him in his dreams, Jimmy screams like a little girl.

Hey, you try keeping your cool when the last person who’d received an angelic visitation ended up carrying God’s son.

But it says that it needs him. _God_ needs him. That’s enough for Jimmy, so he says yes.

Thirty minutes after that, some yahoo with a six-inch Bowie knife stabs him in the chest. So yeah, that went well.

*****

It’s weird having an angel inside him. Amazing healing powers aside, which Jimmy is extremely grateful for, by the way, it’s a bit like watching someone else play him in a movie about his life. He hears his voice saying the most bizarre things -- seals and witnesses and the like -- but it’s not him.

The weirdest part, however, is the radio static playing in his head. Other voices, speaking in words that Jimmy can’t understand directly but gets the gist of -- things are bad.

_How bad?_ Jimmy asks once, when the chatter in his head is so loud that he thinks his voice will be lost in the din.

“Bad,” the angel surprises him by answering. And then everything goes completely black and Jimmy can’t hear anything anymore.

*****

For the record, he’s not exactly thrilled to be banished to the darkest recesses of his own mind. It’s a little lonely back there.

The next time Jimmy sees daylight, it’s not day at all. He’s God-only-knows where, excuse the pun, wearing the same clothes he’d passed out in the night of his dream. The trenchcoat is extremely inappropriate in the desert heat, sweltering despite the apparent late hour.

He goes to shrug off the coat but stops as something catches his attention. Using the faint moonlight, Jimmy can just make out _I will be back soon_ written on his left hand in shaky penmanship.

“Great,” Jimmy sighs and then starts trudging toward the closest signs of civilization.

*****

Time doesn't so much pass as cease to exist while Jimmy's relegated to the back of his mind. There's not much to do, either. He prays a little, wonders if anyone has reported him missing yet, prays some more, and imagines how much work must be piling up on his desk. He silently (as if there were any other way right now) considers how lucky he is for not owning a pet.

He doesn't dare try sleeping. He's afraid of disappearing completely.

When he runs out of things to ponder, he starts a rousing rendition of 99 Bottle of Beer, bumped up to 999 for the occasion.

He's at 476 when suddenly the lights go on and there's the abrupt explosion of countless voices around him. The sounds of people, real people, not just Radio YHWH playing in the background.

Everything's all swimmy. And that, that's very new.

Jimmy looks down at his hand and can't control the guffaw that comes spilling out. He nearly smacks himself in the face when he holds the bottle up for inspection, and the loss of motor function control clues him in.

He's _drunk_. Nothing more than sacramental wine at communion his whole life, and this angel has him guzzling beer in a bar like it's diet Coke. Jerk.

He means to protest. Big words and everything are on the tip of his tongue. But when he opens his mouth, he just ends up yelling, "Take one down and pass it around!" Right in the beer bottle's face. If bottles had faces, of course,

Okay, being drunk makes him stupid.

The offspring of the Jolly Green Giant and a yeti is sitting to his right, and he looks like he's trying hard not to laugh. "Wow, one beer. Heavenly hosts don't have many celebrations, do they?"

Jimmy hears, "Maybe we should hold off on the heavy boozing for when we save all the seals," from his other side, and then someone tries to lift his beer from his grasp. Jimmy tightens his hand around the bottle and kind of…swivels around to see who's taking his drink.

"Thou shall not steal," he tells the guy to his left.

"Down, boy. I'm not stealing it," the guy says. "I'm just moving it so you don't spill it all over yourself." Then Jimmy's hand is empty, and there's a clunk of the bottle hitting the bar.

Jimmy takes a good look at the guy, one that involves closing his right eye completely and squinting his left so that faces come into focus. "Hey, I know you," he says as he points at the guy's face. He thinks he might have actually poked the man in the eye, but who cares because, "You stabbed me!"

And that's when Jimmy passes out.

Well, not so much. But he remembers landing face first on the bar just before everything went dark and silent again. He picks up the chorus right where he left off, sober as a judge.

He doesn't even know what they were celebrating.

*****

He gets control of himself twice while in foreign countries. The first place looks vaguely familiar, and Jimmy is suddenly hit by memories of mid-morning soccer games in the Mexican sun. Everyone around him has settled in for an afternoon siesta, and no one seems concerned by an American wandering aimlessly down the street in clothing that has _definitely_ seen better days.

The other time is more exciting, if by exciting you mean perched on the edge of the freaking Great Wall of China.

He may have even cursed a little. He'll seek penance for it later. Right now, he has to focus on getting down without breaking his neck.

This is not what he signed up for.

*****

The day he comes to while standing in the middle of an empty motel room covered in mud and other various filth is just about the straw that broke the camel's back. Not only is he suspicious that some of the stuff coating him may actually be bodily fluids, but his back is sore, his right shoulder feels dislocated, and he can't see too well out of his left eye.

The only writing utensil he can find is a long-forgotten tube of lipstick, so he snaps it up and limps (just great) over to the dresser mirror. Using his left hand, he scribbles _I really want to know what's going on_. Then he steps back and sits on the nearest bed, keeping his eyes on his message so that it will be the first thing the angel sees when it comes back.

The next time Jimmy gets to come forward, he's sitting in a field with a bunch of other people. To his left is a large black man, staring up at the night sky with a look of wonderment. In fact, Jimmy notices that everyone is facing heaven-ward. He's the only one looking down.

"What's going on?" Jimmy asks his neighbor, and he watches as the man shakes himself out of a daze.

"They needed to regroup. Get further orders," the man explains. "See where they're being sent now."

He starts shuddering, shaking, and Jimmy can't help reaching out and lightly touching the man on his arm. "Hey, are you okay?" Just as he says it, he hears the first sob. Jimmy looks around in time to see everyone around him snap out of whatever daze they were in and start…breaking. A woman a few feet from him collapses to the ground crying; another man flails and starts scrubbing his hands against his clothes, as if desperate to wipe them clean. Someone starts screaming.

Beneath Jimmy's touch, the man jerks. "God, no," he says, voice now wavering. "After what we've seen? Or heard? Done? I was…Uriel wanted to…How can you be so…" Something trips, and the man flinches away completely from Jimmy, rolls to his feet, and just runs away.

Stunned, Jimmy thinks back to his message, scrawled in red makeup. He looks at his feet, and scratched into the dirt is his answer: _No, you really do not._

He doesn't ask again.

*****

It ends on a Tuesday, and he comes to in yet another motel room. Those two men he remembers from the bar are there as well, shielding their eyes from some great light, and that's how Jimmy _knows_ it's over.

There's an awkward moment when they open their eyes and stare, like they had expected him to just disappear along with the angel. When it gets to be too much, Jimmy sheepishly waves and stutters out a "hello."

"You're not Castiel anymore, are you?" the one who didn't stab him asks, and Jimmy realizes that he never even knew the angel's name before now.

It takes him three solid minutes to stop laughing hysterically.

After he calms down and wipes his eyes, both men are looking at him as if he's a candidate for the rubber room. He has to take a deep breath before he can answer, "No, I'm not him. Just Jimmy."

They introduce themselves, Sam and Dean, and Dean nervously rubs the back of his neck. "So, um, when I first met Cas--"

"And you stabbed me," Jimmy adds.

Dean flinches. "Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, Cas said you asked for it. Not the stabbing bit, but the…you know, whole vessel thing," he flails a little. "Oh hell, I'm just trying to say thanks, for your service and all."

"You make it sound like I'm a soldier or something," he tries to joke, but it falls flat when they just stare at him some more.

"You were," Sam says, then, "What do you remember?"

Jimmy actually takes the time to think and has to smile again. "Nothing. Nothing important, anyway." He says a quick, silent prayer for guardian angels, and then takes off that damn tie and trenchcoat.

"So, any chance I could hitch a ride back to Illinois?"


End file.
